[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 44 (Monday, March 22, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E443-E444]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       A TRIBUTE TO KATYA RATTRAY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS-

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 22, 2010

  Mr. TOWNS. Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Katya 
Rattray for her commitment to social service and her years of service 
in the Brooklyn community.
  Katya Rattray's story is that of the quintessential American 
immigrant experience. Katya Rattray was born in Georgetown Guyana of 
mixed race parentage and spent her early years in Guyana and Nassau, 
Bahamas before immigrating to the U.S. almost three decades ago.
  Tragedy struck with the passing of her father Patrick Thorne, a sworn 
land surveyor, while she was still a teenager. She and her family, 
mother Eslyn Thorne and brother Maxim Thorne, immigrated to the United 
States in search of a better future.
  Katya deferred her studies and worked in retail and administrative 
services in the legal and banking industries in New York to help 
support her mother and younger brother. Throughout this period however, 
she kept her eyes on the goals of resuming her education and giving 
back to her community as best she could.
  Upon resuming her studies, she excelled at Rutgers University where 
she double majored in sociology and women's studies. She became a Mabel 
Smith Douglass Honors student focusing on racial justice in the U.S. 
and the plight and struggles of young women of African descent in the 
period leading up to and through the Civil Rights movement.
  She later went on to achieve a masters in business administration 
with a dual specialization in marketing and logistics from the 
University of Miami and embarked on her career in the private sector as 
an international management consultant focusing on issues facing 
minority communities.
  Katya also served a brief stint as a political campaign manager, 
before joining the executive management of Brooklyn Child and Family 
Services, Inc. (BCAFS), a 501(c)(3) non-profit, community-based 
organization that receives millions in public and private grants. She 
has served as both the Interim Executive Director and the Head Start 
and Early Head Start Program Director. She oversees a full range of 
early educational and comprehensive social services to over 800 
families in a predominantly low-income population where many are 
African American, Latino and immigrant. BCAFS has been a provider of 
community-based education, social and other supportive services in the 
Bedford Stuyvesant, Fort Greene, Flatbush, Bushwick, Brooklyn Heights, 
Williamsburg and surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods since 1963.
  Under her leadership, Ms. Rattray has engineered a significant 
transformation to the operations of the program and drastically 
increased its operating efficiency, program outreach and education 
outcomes; no small feat in these trying times.
  She has achieved an almost one hundred percent enrollment in the 
program that is unprecedented in this history of the organization, 
community partnerships have dramatically increased, and once again a 
Policy Council from the community is vibrant and engaged in helping the 
agency, all hallmarks of the Head Start ethos.
  Under Ms. Rattray's stewardship, Brooklyn Children and Family 
Services is once again poised to become a beacon in the 10th 
Congressional District of New York.
  Katya is married to her soul mate, Ken Rattray, an international 
management and technology consultant, and together they have three 
wonder children, Kyra, Kenneth Patrick (KP), and Kalyn.
  Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in recognizing Katya 
Rattray.

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